The type of value Love would return is equal to or better than what OKC got for Harden.

Love put up 26 points and 13 rebs last year and is doing 20 and 15 this year.

All this Love talk is very premature regardless. He is under contract for at least another 2 seasons after this year. Furthermore, Taylor is talking about selling the Wolves. Trading Love for that package is a great way to knock off $100M off his asking price.

Can the raptors make a push and get back into the playoff picture(8th seed) or are they in too much of a hole ?
Chad Ford
(1:12 PM)

I don't see it without a trade for a veteran big man to protect the rim. They are in an interesting place. They have enough pieces they could go in either direction. They could move a few younger players for a player like Varejao and probably be pretty good or they can try to move Bargnani and Calderon and double-down on the rebuilding process. If Bryan Colangelo has watched the Wizards ... he knows which direction NOT to go.

Ford raised the idea in another ESPN article about trading JV and Ross for Varejao. Then he floats the above. I think he is nuts. And comparing the Raps to the Wizards is ridiculous. The Raps young players consist of talented, quality, teachable young men in TR, DD, ED, JV. The Wiz young nucleus until recently had McGee, Blatche, and Young and current bust Vesely.

Doubling-down on the youth movement would be a good thing because the Raptors are showing the current youth are without a doubt heading in the right direction unlike the youth of Washington's recent past.

Anyone heard of Trey Burke at Michigan? I had heard the name but did not realize his season until today. If he keeps going, he won't be #21 as DraftExpress.com/NBADraft.net has him or #13 as SI.com has him.

He is short (6'0") but so is Chris Paul and like Paul again, Burke has a 6'5" wingspan.

Ford raised the idea in another ESPN article about trading JV and Ross for Varejao. Then he floats the above. I think he is nuts. And comparing the Raps to the Wizards is ridiculous. The Raps young players consist of talented, quality, teachable young men in TR, DD, ED, JV. The Wiz young nucleus until recently had McGee, Blatche, and Young and current bust Vesely.

Doubling-down on the youth movement would be a good thing because the Raptors are showing the current youth are without a doubt heading in the right direction unlike the youth of Washington's recent past.

The problem with Washington, was there lack of veteran presence on the court, and in the locker room. The entire team was young, and there weren't any surrounding players to mentor them in the right direction. When you have immature, young, inexperienced players, surrounded by more immature, young, inexperienced players, you get bad results. They didn't have guys on the team to show them the way of the NBA in terms of handling yourself professionally, and playing as a team. Blatche, Mcgee, and Young are 3 very, very talented players. IF they had the veteran presence around, who knows how talented this core would've been.

Derozan, and Ed (now as of late, Ross, JV, Acy) have been surrounded by veterans ever since entering the league. Derozan came in with CB in town, Reggie Evans, Antoine Wright, Jarrett Jack, Rasho. Ed was around Leandro, Peja was in for that short time, Evans still around. Last year, you could really notice the veteran presence up to the current time, with guys like Magloire, Gray, Carter, Pietrus.

How could you learn something, when you're being taught by basically the same person?

The problem with Washington, was there lack of veteran presence on the court, and in the locker room. The entire team was young, and there weren't any surrounding players to mentor them in the right direction. When you have immature, young, inexperienced players, surrounded by more immature, young, inexperienced players, you get bad results. They didn't have guys on the team to show them the way of the NBA in terms of handling yourself professionally, and playing as a team. Blatche, Mcgee, and Young are 3 very, very talented players. IF they had the veteran presence around, who knows how talented this core would've been.

Derozan, and Ed (now as of late, Ross, JV, Acy) have been surrounded by veterans ever since entering the league. Derozan came in with CB in town, Reggie Evans, Antoine Wright, Jarrett Jack, Rasho. Ed was around Leandro, Peja was in for that short time, Evans still around. Last year, you could really notice the veteran presence up to the current time, with guys like Magloire, Gray, Carter, Pietrus.

How could you learn something, when you're being taught by basically the same person?

Veteran presence will never make up for a lack of character, work ethic, and/or desire.

I agree. Washington's problem is the same its been for years. They greatly over pay for talent in an attempt to just make the playoffs. They've had 3 of the worst contracts in the NBA on their team over a 2 years span (Arenas, Jameson, Lewis) and when they finally clear that out, they immediate trade for the opprotunity to pay Okafor 14 mil and Ariza 7? Add Nene to that (who is a good player but is still making 15+ for 4 more years) and its clear they don't have a vision of anything beyond cashing in on the playoff gate.

Despite moving questionable players such as Young, they've simply replaced him with Crawford. All they did was change the name and jersey number for a very similar player.

Throw in a terrible draft pick (Vesley) and incomplete franchise player (Wall - very good player but still missing that jumper without a Rondo type passing and defensive dominance) and you see a failed franchise who is just getting what they asked for.

Washington's problems has nothing to do with a lack of veteran presence, but rather a complete lack of vision and patience by management.

Veteran presence will never make up for a lack of character, work ethic, and/or desire.

Well, I don't know how to answer to this. Take a look at Blatche, having a really solid season off the bench/starting for injuries for Brooklyn. His signing was considered questionable, but it seems he has worked to get mentally better, physically fit, and coach-able.

McGee? He still makes bone-headed plays, but he's become more 'stable' under Coach Karl, and seems to have improved since the trade under veterans like Harrington, Miller.

Nick Young? I didn't see much bad about his attitude, just that he made easy plays harder. He seems to have calmed that down, and is a well known scorer around the league.

I guess it's a mix of veteran presence, coaching and accountability, and of course the players' will to work hard. Looking at the list of 'veterans', not sure those are highly valued names other than Bibby, Hinrich, and Jamison. But, how much impact in the locker room did those 'veterans' have?

Well, I don't know how to answer to this. Take a look at Blatche, having a really solid season off the bench/starting for injuries for Brooklyn. His signing was considered questionable, but it seems he has worked to get mentally better, physically fit, and coach-able.

McGee? He still makes bone-headed plays, but he's become more 'stable' under Coach Karl, and seems to have improved since the trade under veterans like Harrington, Miller.

Nick Young? I didn't see much bad about his attitude, just that he made easy plays harder. He seems to have calmed that down, and is a well known scorer around the league.

I guess it's a mix of veteran presence, coaching and accountability, and of course the players' will to work hard. Looking at the list of 'veterans', not sure those are highly valued names other than Bibby, Hinrich, and Jamison. But, how much impact in the locker room did those 'veterans' have?

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Blatche is/was on a non-guaranteed, veteran's minimum contract. Nobody in the league wanted the guy despite his talent - which has never been in question. This is the man who brought lap-dance Tuesday to Washington and was the other half of the very public fight outside a club with a teammate (McGee). There have been a number of articles about his plummet to rock bottom this summer. Blatche is also 8 years in to the league now and 26 years old.

McGee does not start in Denver because of his inconsistency and lack of focus. Harrington was traded this summer. McGee is also going to be 25 in less than 2 weeks and was just given a huge extension by Denver. Maturity does sometime appear naturally and the lack of interest this summer in long term deal offers from teams might have been a wake up call.

Young was simply tarnished by association. He chose to follow and associate with Blatche which would show immaturity and poor decision making on his part.

'Veterans' don't necessarily need to be stars. There are a lot of guys in the league who are still in the league because they are professional and lead by example. It was this reason why the Raps signed Carter, Rasual Butler, and Magloire last season as you implied. While the list of veterans I have riddled off for Washington may not be highly valued, I hate to say, it is about par with the Raptors list of 'veterans' you have provided. Don't forget DeRozan also had Turk in his rookie year, Bosh was hardly a leader and isolated himself in his final year in T.O. while Antoine Wright was hardly a solid veteran presence (and both Wright and Jack were busted on DUI's shortly after leaving Toronto). A lack of leadership and a divided locker room was a well known issue in DeRozan's rookie year. So how did he turn out so good? Work ethic and strong character brought about through a solid upbringing.

Make no mistake the bad apple in Washington was Blatche. Maybe the poor example of Arenas is to blame for his outcome but his rookie season and second year from '05-'06 to '06-'07 had a solid core of veterans at the time in Caron Butler, Chucky Atkins, Antawn Jamison, Antonio Daniels, Brendan Haywood, and Etan Thomas. These 2 years were also playoff years for Washington.

I am not sure what your issue with my statements earlier is. This is what the reply you bold initially was in response to:

Kevin (Toronto)

Can the raptors make a push and get back into the playoff picture(8th seed) or are they in too much of a hole ?
Chad Ford
(1:12 PM)

I don't see it without a trade for a veteran big man to protect the rim. They are in an interesting place. They have enough pieces they could go in either direction. They could move a few younger players for a player like Varejao and probably be pretty good or they can try to move Bargnani and Calderon and double-down on the rebuilding process. If Bryan Colangelo has watched the Wizards ... he knows which direction NOT to go.

TR, DD, and JV are well known for their solid character and stable role models in their upbringing. ED has the family history of blue-collar NBA workers with his Dad (Chop) and uncle-like Ben Wallace. Landry Fields is just 24 and Amir is just 25 and are solid professionals and people.

This is my point: the Raptors have youth and young veterans with character. Adding more youth to this situation would not be a bad thing assuming the new youth were also of solid character. Washington, on the other hand, had youth and young veterans who severely lacked positive character. Adding youth to that mix is going to be toxic unless the youth were already of sound character and mind (John Wall, for example).

Comparing the Raptors youth to the Wiz youth of a few seasons ago was a poor comparison by Ford, in my opinion.